Death Sentence by Ashley Hawthorne

Author:Ashley Hawthorne [Hawthorne, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creative James Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Eloise had never realized how busy a crime scene actually was. The front of the building had been so calm and quiet when she’d arrived but within a few short minutes it was overrun with indistinguishable beat cops in matching uniforms, EMTs packing up their equipment, medical examiners with apathetic faces, and homicide detectives in cheap suits holding clipboards and asking questions.

Everyone was busy doing a job, but Eloise’s stomach revolted as she watched them move around with such apathetic efficiency. This was routine to them, crossing paths with death simply something they did between cups of shitty work coffee, but Eloise had never stared down at the shell a person left behind, especially not a person that she’d known personally in life.

Would they have examined her body with such curious indifference if they’d seen her while she was still alive? Seen those incredible eyes of hers bright and shining on a summer afternoon and not dull and glassy and staring endlessly up at a cloudy, rainswept sky?

“And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone else around when you arrived, Ms. Mason?” The detective, whose name Eloise had already forgotten, was watching her closely as she wrote down the answers to each of the questions she’d asked Eloise so far. She seemed young for a homicide detective, small and thin and with the faintest edge of a Chinese accent, but there was a calm look of determination in her eyes. She didn’t look like the type to let off of a goal once she’d set her mind to it, which Eloise supposed was useful in her line of work.

“No one,” Eloise confirmed. “It was raining, and I wasn’t really looking around. I was watching the sky because there was some lightning and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get into the building.”

“And the body was exactly as it is now when you found it?”

“I think so.” Eloise glanced in the direction of the medical examiners, huddled around Kim as they collected evidence or whatever it was they did in these situations. “I tripped over her and then, when I realized … I don’t know. I checked, you know? To see if she was breathing?”

“But you didn’t call 911 immediately?”

Eloise took a shuddering breath. It felt like a trap, but she’d already admitted as much to the dispatcher, so what else could she do now but tell the truth? “No, I didn’t. Kim, she was … It looked like she’d been hurt. She had bruising on her neck,” Eloise stopped and placed a hand on her own throat to indicate, waited for the detective to nod her understanding, “and I thought, maybe whoever hurt her might still be around.”

“You were frightened?”

“Yes, I was. It probably sounds pathetic but I was scared so I ran back to my car and called for help once the doors were locked.”

“And you didn’t see those two,” the detective gestured to Sarah and Chloe, each standing several feet away and talking to different detectives, “until

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